Beschreibung:

Title: Three autograph letters, signed, from Pepi Lederer to Charles Lederer Author: Lederer, Pepi Place: Beverly Hills and Geneva Publisher: Date: 1929-1931 Description: 3 autograph letters signed all addressed to her brother, Charles Lederer. One 4 pp letter on 2 sheets of Beverly-Willshire Apartment-Hotel letterhead [1929]; one 12 pp letter on La Residence Geneve letterhead [1930]; one 12 pp letter addressed from Geneva [1931]. In the first letter Pepi relates to her brother her partying ways and her attempt at redemption "I really have been very wicked, drinking, etc. but I have pulled a veritable Mary Magdalene and am practically retrieved from the road to ruin. I am on the Wagon for at least a month.". In the second letter, from Geneva, she tells of "making whoop-whoop with various and sundry persons" including Cecil Beaton ("Cecil Beaton fell for me my dear and literally tried to seduce me. He nearly got me as I was so weak with laughter I could hardly resist him.") and Tallulah Bankhead. She goes on to describe the start of her enrollment in college in Geneva and her search for comfortable housing. In the third letter she writes further about her education, daily activities and fantasies ("I just want to be a gipsy or a sailor and see the world"). After Marion Davies began her long-term relationship with William Randolph Hearst, Hearst took responsibility for the accommodation of Pepi and her several siblings, including Charlie Lederer, later a well-known screenwriter. Pepi spent a good deal of her youth at Hearst's palatial residence at San Simeon. Though she was known for being the life of the party, she secretly yearned to be taken seriously as an author and actress. Apparently the Hearsts took the ambitions of her brother more seriously, relegating her to a few small parts in movies such as 'Her Cardboard Lover' and a providing her a token job on Hearst's magazine The Connoisseur. Lederer reportedly had a voracious appetite for rich food, alcohol, and eventually, cocaine. In 1935, her drug addiction worsening, Davies and Hearst committed her to a mental hospital to receive a drug cure. Shortly afterwards, she jumped out of a window, dying instantly after falling several floors. Also included is a brief note from "Chuck" to Charlie Lederer dated June 19, 1935 expressing his condolences on the passing of Pepi. Lot Amendments Condition: Near fine. Item number: 190619